


close as strangers

by mariiposie



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: F/M, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27051922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariiposie/pseuds/mariiposie
Summary: six weeks since i've been away, now you're saying everything has changed, and i'm afraid that i might be losing you.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen & Gina Porter, Ricky Bowen & Nini Salazar-Roberts, Ricky Bowen/Gina Porter, Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Comments: 1
Kudos: 45





	close as strangers

The afterparty that surrounded him buzzed, humming, electric with energy.

There were people everywhere. Dancing, smiling. Perched on every available surface within Ashlyn's house, all chattering. Some were congratulating each other as if their performance hadn't gone as poorly as it so clearly had done. When Gina had led him into the auditorium. And the eyes of everyone within the room, expecting something from the stage, turned to _him_ instead. When Gina had to watch as Nini -- 

Clearly, something else played on everyone's lips too. 

Words and whispers that had spread around the relatively enclosed, tight-knit room like a wildfire setting alight to vulnerable bracken. "Ricky and Nini?" "Back together--" "He actually said it this time?"

And finally, what seemed the loudest in his ears, like a booming explosion over the ever-burning flames -- "Gina's back?"

Though most of the mumblings directly involved him, the hushes and murmurs about what he'd said to Nini in that silent dressing room after the show, for whatever reason, Ricky found himself hyper-focusing on the discussions that pertained to the last subject.

"How did she even get here?" One friend would say to another, as they passed cans and bowls of snacks around the room.

"I heard EJ Caswell paid for her plane tickets," someone else would say, over the shallow melody of quiet music emanating from a speaker somewhere in the room. Always and inevitably, the whispers would find themselves dancing across the room, directly towards Ricky's ears.

So now, he sat upon the granite countertop in Ashlyn's kitchen, the knowledge that Gina was back, and likely at this party, having to play on his mind as he sat playing with the drink in his hand.

When he'd first seen her -- back on the stage, as though it was her home, with a bright red tray in her hand and performing the choreography he knew that she'd taken weeks to master -- she was in her element. Now, as his eyes finally landed upon her across the room, where she sat on the couch surrounded by moving bodies and picking at her nails, she couldn't have looked more out of it.

Something was on her mind. He was sure of it. He knew it to be true.

But as Nini sat up on the counter beside him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, he had to remind himself (perhaps too forcibly for his liking), that he had chosen Nini. He meant to say those words this time. Why else would they have left his lips?

Within his mind, he told himself that the eyeliner chemicals were just scrambling his brain. Him and Gina -- well, they were nothing more than that. Just Ricky. And Gina. 

All too optimistically.

Though it was Nini's arms that were wrapped around him, though it was Nini who was smiling at him like she'd waited for this moment for her whole life, though it was Nini who was laughing at jokes he muttered under his breath (ones he knew full well weren't funny), and it was Nini's warmth that he felt beside him -- it was Gina's eyes that he was watching from across the room.

Even if they refused to meet his.

As the night wore on (and wear on it did), the crowd that had gathered within Ashlyn's living room at the start of the night finally began to thin, until the only faces left within were the familiar ones Ricky had come to know best during his stint in the East High theatre department.

Gina still sat on the arm of the couch situated within the middle of the living room (a position he was sure he hadn't seen her move from since his eyes first landed upon her), settled beside EJ and Ashlyn, watching her feet and fiddling with her fingers. Something that he'd come to recognise as so innately _her_.

Then there was Nini, still all but clinging onto his neck. And Big Red, who'd been sat diligently beside Ricky for the majority of the party (other than when Young Hearts Run Free came on the speaker, at which point, he'd jumped out of his seat and launched himself into an over the top, and suspiciously over-rehearsed danced routine).

When, just a few minutes later, the room lulled into one of those awkward "everybody stopped talking at the exact same time" silences, it was Ashlyn's voice that was the first to break the quiet. "I can't believe it's going to be another three weeks until we all see each other again!"

More silence. The cumbrous shuffling of feet. Someone further back in the living room cleared their throat.

Then -- the crunch of the can of whatever EJ had just downed and launched at the bin in the kitchen at full pelt before he stood up and announced -- "Guys, we could always just stay at my parent's cabin for the weekend."

Big Red tentatively raised his hand to talk. "It's not in the woods, is it? Because I've seen films about that and --"

"No. It's in the mountains. No films about cabins in the mountains, are there?" Red thought for a moment and then shook his head. "Good," EJ continued, "Who's in?"

"Yeah! We'll go, won't we Ricky?" Nini asked him, lightly nudging her knee against his. But in his ears, it had sounded like nothing more than a blur of faded noise. Because, as voices began to loudly chatter around the room once more, about lifts and who would be the one to drive up to the cabin itself (with a game of noses, wherein the group had managed to designate EJ as the chosen one), Ricky's eyes were only upon Gina, as she fidgeted nervously, her eyes flicking around the room.

He could just about hear Nini continue to talk at him, but whatever words she was saying refused to enter his brain. Instead -- out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Gina pulled EJ and Ashlyn aside for a chat, one which ended in bright smiles, beaming faces and a massive group hug.

Red nudged Ricky gently, nodding in Gina's direction, but purposely keeping out of earshot from Nini. "Huh. I wonder what that's all about?"

Ricky pulled his eyes away, shooting a glance at Red before looking back to where Nini was stood in front of him, tapping her foot and waiting for the answer to the question she'd asked him five minutes earlier. "Hmm, what did you ask me a second ago?"

She smiled at him, presumably brushing off his distracted mind as nothing more than that. But Ricky knew it was something more. With him and Gina, it always was.

"We'll go on the road trip, won't we Ricky?" She said, standing beside his legs, her hands resting upon his knees. His mind was still anywhere but in the room. His eyes threatened a glance at Gina once more, and it looked like she was almost crying now, but through the blurred tears remained that smile. The one he'd come to know so well.

"Hmm?" He reminded himself of Nini standing so immediately within his presence, smiling right at him. "Oh -- Yeah, I'll let you know tonight."

* * *

Gina still played on his mind, like an echo, like a melody stuck on an endless repeat within his consciousness. He'd laid flat down on Red's bed the minute they'd got to his after the party, and he hadn't moved in a good two hours.

She occupied every nook and cranny of his being. He'd told Nini he'd loved her for the first time mere hours ago, in what felt like the one moment in time that everything had been leading up to. But all he could think about was how that moment when he and Red left through Ashlyn's front door as the stars danced their eternal waltz upon the horizon, was the last time he'd seen Gina.

Ever. And for real this time.

Now, he was on the other side of the door they'd entered through together on Thanksgiving, but this time -- he was without her. Everything felt so _final_.

Even after she'd stormed out that night, he'd been the one to follow her. He wasn't going to let her walk home, in the November cold, all alone. So he didn't. She'd told him that they'd make plans for her last day in SLC. He'd show her the sights. But then -- she'd left a day early. Something that was wholly out of her control. Maybe, that's why their last goodbye the first time around didn't feel so final as this one did.

Last time, when'd he received that text in the theatre -- in that moment, he had to process the fact that he'd seen her for the very last time. Now, he had to do the very same. But straight to her face.

When he'd wrapped her in what was likely to be their last hug, he was so reluctant to let go. He didn't want to let her go.

None of this was a good sign. Not the overthinking. Especially not when, the very same day, you'd just got back with the one girl that had been waiting for you.

He sighed, keeping his gaze upon the ceiling of Red's room. Until Red's hand waved back and forth in front of Ricky's eyes. "Hello? Anyone home?"

Ricky blinked slowly, looking straight at Red, who, upon seeing Ricky's dazed expression and flopped down on the bed beside his friend. "Dude, you've been moping on my bed for the past three hours. Are you gonna tell me what's up?"

He shrugged, desperately wanting to avoid the question. "Just don't know if I should go at the weekend, is all." He said. Maybe not convincingly enough.

"Did something happen between you and Nini?" 

At that, Ricky shot up from the bed, frowning at Red. "No, why? Did she say anything to you?"

Red looked at him. "You're highly-strung tonight."

Ricky flopped back down on the bed. Red smiled at him once more. "So something _did_ happen?" Ricky rolled his eyes at his friend. "Or is this about Gina?" At the mention of her name, Ricky's ears pricked and his head spun around to look at Red. "I wish you'd stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Thinking that there's something going on between me and Gi,"

Red nodded to himself. "You said it. Not me." Ricky rolled his eyes, and once more fell back into the plush of the duvet beneath him. This time, Red sighed. "You _should_ come though," he nudged him with his elbow, "It'll be fun."

"I just -- I don'k know."

"Look," he reached over, grabbing something from his bedside table, "If you're so conflicted about this, let us consult the one entity who has answered all of our previous life questions for us."

On cue, Red revealed what he had taken from his bedside table.

Placed within Ricky's hands as though it was an omnipotent, prophetic crystal ball, was a black sphere of plastic, bearing a white circle on the front, one which contained the number eight. "Not the magic eight ball," Ricky said, a dumbfounded frown painted upon his face. (It was one Red's parents had gotten from a gift shop in Vegas almost eight years ago, and one the two of them had used to make several decisions in the past.) (Including -- most recently, whether or not to get takeaway for dinner.)

"Find the answer within," Red told him, waving his hands in the air as though he was conjuring something, to add the effect. 

"Okay," Ricky's voice trailed, sounding utterly unconvinced. He shouldn't even have been conflicted. Surely he should've been more than happy to spend time with the girl he'd been chasing after for almost three years now? And yet -- "Should I go on the road trip?" He spoke into the ether, waiting for the supernatural forces of the ball to hear his question.

He shook it once, then twice, and twisted it so that the dim screen upon the front faced him. From the gloom of the blue-dyed liquid came his answer.

"Yes."

"That's very decisive." Red told him, pointing out that which was already blatantly obvious.

"I guess that settles it then," Ricky answered. He sighed. "Just know that I'm not entirely gassed about having to sit in a car with EJ Caswell for three hours, though."

Red smiled. "It'll be worth it though."

Ricky sighed once more, leaning back on the bed. "Okay. Red, do you have any more questions for Ye Olde Magic Eight Ball?" He asked, tossing it in Red's direction.

Red barely caught it and cupped his hands beneath it. He shut his eyes, silently asked his question, and shook it once, hard.

"Well, would you look at that."

He showed Ricky the answer the great ball had just given him. "All signs point to yes."

Ricky chuckled under his breath. "You know, it doesn't really work if you don't tell me what you asked for."

"Oh, right," Red huffed, "I just asked if anything exciting was going to happen this weekend. And The Ball seems pretty certain."

* * *

Somehow (Red had volunteered him), Ricky had been put on baggage duty with EJ, and so the two of them had been all but locked out of the house with more bags and suitcases than they would've ever needed and had been left to figure out how to fit it all into the back of Red's parents' Minivan. 

Ricky leant over the top of the car where, luckily enough for his sanity, he found a car rack, which looked as though it was enough to (weather permitting) at least carry another couple of bags. For some reason, theatre kids packed like they were going on a gap year for nothing more than a short weekend away. _Seriously,_ he thought to himself, _who needed this many clothes?_

A weird atmosphere clung to the silent air. He and EJ weren't exactly friends, and if the rumours he'd heard were true, if EJ _had_ been the one to buy Gina that plane ticket, well, that wasn't exactly going to make it any less awkward, was it?

"So," Ricky started, desperately not wanting to spend the entire packing process stuck in the awkward silence of heaving fabric. "I knew you were a trust fund baby, but I didn't know you had two houses."

EJ glared at him from across the roof of the car, passing him another hulking back full of, what honestly felt like a tonne of rocks. But sure enough, with the next passing of a bag, EJ answered. "Uh, it's three, actually."

Ricky tilted his head, gesturing for EJ to elaborate. He rolled his eyes. "Well, my parents work across the country, so..." His eyes quickly glanced to the front door, almost expectantly, but quickly he looked back to Ricky, handing him another bag.

Ricky smiled to himself as he took the next bag out of EJ's grasp. "Well, when we eat the rich, I know exactly where I'm coming first."

"You know what, I don't think that's how --" EJ began. But his voice was drowned out of Ricky's conscience (or maybe it had stopped altogether) because there, stood struggling with her bag upon Ashlyn's porch (and this time, he was positive that they were both stood on the same side of the door), was Gina Porter.

The very same Gina Porter he'd thought he'd lost for the last time. But it was so undeniably her that stood there. Wrapped in multicoloured knitwear, the tip of her nose beginning to redden in the frigid November air.

Whatever EJ had just passed to him across the roof of the car had managed to slip through the tips of his fingers and fall back upon EJ, sending him flying back down off the roof of the car.

He muttered a sorry. But Ricky didn't care.

Because Gina was here. Somehow.

Her eyes finally caught upon his from across the driveway. With a gloved hand, she brushed a loose curl out of her face. He swore, that just for a moment, her cheeks reddened, ever so slight. The smallest trace of a smile danced upon her lips.

Digging his hands as far down into his pockets as he could, he slowly, sheepishly, made his way across the driveway, intentionally masking himself as far calmer than how he actually felt. Because inside, his heart was pounding in his ears, butterflies threatened to erupt from their cocoons within his stomach.

He wasn't going to let that show. Not when Nini was still only on the other side of that door.

"Gi," he started, "You're back?"

She nodded. "Apparently so," that faint trace of a smile grew ever wider. "And I'm not leaving this time." Then -- with a huff, her bright red suitcase slipped out of her fingers, toppling to the ground in a heap.

Gina went to reach for it, but Ricky took it out of her grasp before she even had a chance to take it and lumber with its weight. But even then, his arm buckled slightly when he picked it up. "Jesus -- Are you bringing a stack of bricks?"

Gina laughed as she walked beside him to the boot of the car, where, with her help due to its sheer mass, they both lifted the suitcase in.

And then. Just for a moment. They waited there. Like there was something else that waited on baited breaths, something more than needed to fill the space between them.

Ricky brushed a hand to the back of his neck. "I know I said it that day but -- I'm glad you're back Gi."

She smiled. "Me too. Listen, I was going to tell you at the party but --"

Ricky smiled. "Don't even worry about it. I get it."

"You always do, Ricky."

Suddenly, and very jarringly, Nini's reflection appeared in the window beside them.

"Nini," he exclaimed, "When did you get here?"

"I've been here the entire time?" She told him. She sucked in a breath. "Gina! You're back! That's... cool. You're just staying for the weekend, or?"

"Nope. You've got me for the whole year." Gina answered Nini's question, but her eyes never left Ricky's.

Nini interlocked her arm with Ricky's. "Wow! A whole year. Did you hear that Ricky? A whole year! That's... that's so long."

* * *

To only furthermore complicate matters, especially the synchronisation between his head and his heart, Nini had decided to sit beside Ashlyn up in the front row of seats.

Leaving him sat beside Gina in the back.

He'd barely had time to think before everybody packed into the car to begin the three-hour-long drive through the great Utah wilderness to the cabin. To think about how she was back, and she was here, and she was real and breathing and sat so close to him.

He was finally starting to consider the matters of his heart. Maybe, one of the only reasons he'd told Nini that night was that he'd already resigned to the fact that he'd never see Gina again. Why would he harbour feelings for a girl who had danced out of his life just as quickly as she'd danced in when Nini was stood right in front of him? When she was there, but Gina wasn't?

Perhaps, the worst of all was that he knew he couldn't possibly be allowed to be this conflicted. Not when his girlfriend, the one he'd so definitively said the words "I love you" too, sat only in the front seat. Maybe, that night in the changing room, he wasn't _telling_ Nini. He was trying to convince himself that the words he told her were the truth.

With every breath, every minuscule movement, every pothole in the faded road, his arm would brush aside Gina's. Not that he was consciously aware of how he was breathing. His lungs were swamped with that familiar scent. One that smelt so much like strawberries and roses and reminded him of bear hugs and lingering hands upon arms.

Then -- in the next moment, he became aware of Gina's breathing suddenly shifting, not as still, not as constant as it once was. He watched as she shut her eyes, and pressed a thumb deep into the palm of her hand. "Gi? Are you okay?"

Her eyes fluttered open. "Yeah. Sorry," she waved a hand in the air, "It's just really stuffy in this car."

He shifted, moving his arm onto the headrest behind the both of them, his fingers brushing into the still aura that surrounded her. "Well," he began, waiting for her eyes to peel away from the road and look straight at him. She did. She looked straight at him. "Whenever I used to get carsick, my Dad would force more to play ISpy as a distraction."

She tilted her head at him, looking at him as though he was an idiot. He picked up on the smallest of laughs she let out under her breath. He took the fact that she hadn't said no as an invitation. Unprompted, he began. "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with G."

Straight away, Gina's eyes brightened. "Me?"

Ricky bit his tongue. "No Gi. That starts with an M."

Gina rolled her eyes, nudging her knee into Ricky's. "Wow. I've been back for one day, and you're already bullying me again, Bowen."

He raised his hands defensively. 

From up ahead, in the driver's seat of the car, EJ suddenly suggested that they play some music.

Then, even louder over the noise of the entire car suggesting songs to play, came Ashlyn's booming voice. "No! Do not give Edward Jacob the aux, please don't--"

Alas, it was too late. Before anyone else could get it off him, with one hand in a single swift movement, EJ had slipped his phone out of his pocket and plugged it into the aux system of the car.

Before everybody could complain about his _questionable_ song choices, Close As Strangers by 5 Seconds of Summer suddenly began blasting through the dodgy speakers situated around the car. Even through the grain and off-key singing, when he looked back to where Gina joined in on the sing-along, he could hear the words as clear as day.

"Six weeks since I've been away, and now you're saying everything has changed."

Because everything had. Just not between Ricky and Gina.

At one point, much later on in the drive, as the Sun had just about begun her descent from the sky, whilst the Moon began her rise, as the car trundled further and further into the mountains, Ricky awoke to an all but silent car, most of its occupants fast asleep.

Including Gina. Who's head was rested so gently upon Ricky's shoulder as she slept.

His arm was wrapped around her shoulders, holding her tightly. He must've placed it there, subconsciously as he himself slept.

She looked comfortable. He didn't want to disrupt her. So he didn't move his arm. He left it there, his hand wrapped within the curls upon her head. 

He rested his bleary eyes shut once more, leaning his own head back against her, just as he had before he'd awoken.

* * *

"I call dibs on the bunk beds!" Shouted Ashlyn, as she legged it through the house to one of the rooms nearest the back.

Nini followed behind her, presumably to take the other bunk. Ricky had barely spoken to her, barely seen her all day. Something had been _off_ , distinctly not right in the passing days from the party. Ricky assumed that telling Nini the words she'd waited for would set them back to normal, that everything would be the exact same. But it hadn't. If anything -- since the words had left his lips, the two of them had only become more distant.

But something, a quiet voice in the back of his mind, told him that it wasn't the fault of the words.

EJ took the bed in his own room, whilst Red was left with the whole master suite for himself (he'd forewarned everybody about the whole sleep apnea thing), leaving Gina with the remaining single bed to herself. Which meant, inevitably, Ricky had the couch.

They'd arrived just before the Sun had set, and everybody was already pretty tired from the journey up, so most people headed straight to bed.

Since the moment they'd got there, Red had been suspiciously eyeing up Ricky, so, as soon as the rest of their friends filtered out of the living room where Ricky would be sleeping (Nini with the most fleeting of kisses, Gina with a quiet "Goodnight Ricky," that brought back the one memory that haunted him like a bloodstain), Red moved to stand in front of him.

Without even a word passed between the two of them, Red placed is hand on Ricky's shoulder and, once more from behind his back, produced the magic eight ball.

"What am I supposed to --" He turned to ask Red, but by the time he looked up from the ball to ask, his friend had already slinked off to his own room.

He rubbed a hand over his face.

He asked the only question he could think of asking.

"Did I make a mistake?" He spoke, talking to no one but the piece of plastic he held in his hand.

He shook it once. Twice.

And sure enough -- there from the gloom emerged the answer to his question.

"All sources point to yes."

In the night, he awoke with a jolt. Noises moved around the room, quiet footsteps and muted sniffles.

Blind in the dark, he patted through his belongings, trying to find something he could take in his hand to aid him on a quest to uncover the source of the noise. But -- fittingly, almost like dirt in his eye, all he could find below him was the magic eight ball. 

Figuring he had no other option, he grabbed a hold of it, wielding it like a weapon in his hand and headed to the kitchen, where he was sure the noise was coming from.

When he rounded the corner from the living room to the kitchen, he was suddenly hit by lights, the pause for his eyes to adjust prompting his to grip even tighter onto the ball in his hand. There -- illuminated by the dim light of the kitchen hob was Gina, her face red and splotchy, as though it was damp with tears. She sniffled.

Ricky lowered his weapon and cleared his throat, alerting Gina that he was stood behind her. She swung around.

"Ricky? --" Then she paused, and looked to the object in his hand. "I was -- Is that a magic eight ball?" She asked, confusion lacing her voice.

Ricky shrugged. "It's all I could find, and I thought --" 

Her confused frown was suddenly replaced by a smile. "You thought I was an intruder?" He nodded. "Well, I'm glad to know that if I _was_ I'd stand no chance against your.. magic eight ball."

She leant up against the countertop. Ricky’s eyes glanced to the clock upon the cooker. “So…” he started, jumping up on the worktop besides Gina. “What are you doing up at 3:23 am?”

She tilted her head. “I could ask you the very same thing.” He just looked at her. She gave in. “Okay -- I wanted a hot chocolate?” She said, shrugging her shoulders almost unconvinced of her own answer. 

“Right…” He told her, jumping down off the table and placing the magic eight ball right into her hands. “Don’t even worry, because you’ve got one Ricky’s Own Hot Chocolate coming right up.”

“Milk or water?” He asked, taking two mugs out of the cupboard under the sink and placing them beside the hob.

“Milk is the only correct option.”

Ricky held out his hand for a high five. “Yes, that’s my girl.”

And there was that same sheepish smile that he’d seen so many times before. “I’m just,” she started. He nodded at her, letting her know it was okay to keep going. “I guess I’m just a little homesick, you know?”

He smiled at her. He knew. He always did. “Yeah, about that -- I’ve been meaning to ask --“

She smiled. She knew what he was asking. “I’m staying in Ashlyn’s guest room for the next year.” 

“Wow. So I… We really do get a whole year more of you huh?”

She bit her lip. “I guess so. It’s just weird being back. It’s like everything’s changed.” She looked right at him. Every time she did, it was like she was looking right into his soul. And every time she looked away, it was like she was taking a bit with her.

He couldn’t even disagree with what she’d said. In the span of less than a week, she’d apparently become all but a stranger to him. Whilst Nini had become his girlfriend. The one he’d said those three words to.

"And I guess you have to start spending a lot more time with EJ, right?"

"He's not even that bad, you know. His heart's in the right place. He's just bad at the rest of it. I wouldn't even be back here in the first place if it wasn't for him."

They lulled into that awkward silence, one where words don't seem to fill the space between in the right place.

“You know you can always talk to me Gi. We get each other, right?”

"Of course,"

By the time Ricky had finished both of their drinks (including topping them off with more than enough whipped cream) and handed her the steaming mug, she’d taken it upon herself to give the magic eight ball a shake and watch as the answer to her silent question formed from the darkness. “Stupid thing.” She muttered, smirking it and handing it back to him.

“Well,” he began, taking a sip of his drink, “What did you ask it?”

Gina shook her head. “If I tell you, it won’t come true will it?” She took a massive swig of her drink, and he was sure it must’ve burnt her throat at least a little bit.

“You're the second person who's said that now. I don't think that's how --" 

She smiled at him. At the sight of her seated beside him, with whipped cream right on the tip of her nose, Ricky completely lost his train of thought. 

He pointed at her. “You’ve got a bit --“

“What?”

Placing his mug down beside him, he reached out to her, brushing it off of her nose. “There you go.” He smiled.

And she smiled back up at him, and for a moment, just a moment, he could’ve sworn that they were leaning into each other, that her eyes threatened a glance at his lips. But then she cleared her throat and took another sip of her drink, hopping off of the countertop. 

She pointed back to the magic eight ball. “Honestly. That thing doesn’t work in the slightest.”

“Do I even want to know?”

She turned just before she left, momentarily looking back at him. “Goodnight Ricky."

* * *

Ricky had heard barely a word from Nini since they'd got there. It was as though she was ignoring him. Not that he didn't blame her. He wasn't exactly... seeking out her company.

She must've sensed something was up too. She knew him well. Knew him of old. She must've seen _something_. Maybe it was the way his eyes lit up every time Gina so much as entered a room. (Something which was vastly out of his control. But every time his eyes laid upon her once more, it was like he remembered she was back all over again.)

But between him and Nini -- not even so much as a passing glance between the two of them. Yet. Every corner he turned, there was Gina. And not just physically. Within his mind as well. He was supposed to have come on this road trip for Nini in the first place. But yesterday, today, tonight -- there was Gina.

Perhaps that was why he wasn't entirely surprised when, just after breakfast, Nini decided to finally get the inevitable over with, and pull him for a chat on the porch in the back garden.

"Ricky. I can see what's happening. And I know you don't have a clue, but I can see it in your eyes. I'm not an idiot."

"You're right." He said. If this was what he thought it was about... then she was. And undeniably so.

"I am? About what?"

He sighed. "Nini, don't make me spell it out,"

She didn't. Because she knew. Maybe she had as soon as opening night. Maybe she knew even whilst he was telling her that he loved her. She saw the way he'd looked back at Gina that night. 

Though he didn't even mean the words in the first place. This time, as he thought about it, he was sure. He wasn't telling Nini that he loved her. He was convincing _himself_ that he did.

For the first time. When Nini turned around and walked off the porch, closing the patio doors behind her, Ricky, at last, had that feeling of finality that he had been looking for.

EJ had established very early on in the day that tonight, as the Moon began to rise into the sky, they'd be having a bonfire down in the expansive fire pit at the bottom of the garden. He'd really hammered the point home when he later came back from a food run, carrying in twenty packs of marshmallows.

For the second time that day, Ricky found himself sat on the porch in the back garden, his legs propped up on the bannister. Red stuck his head around the door. "Richard Bowen, are you gonna tell me why Ashlyn just found Nini crying on the bottom bunk?"

"Oh yeah, we broke up. But Gina was certain this doesn't work, you know." He said, rolling the magic eight ball between his fingers.

Red side-eyed him. "What gives? You spent the whole of last year trying to get her back, and the minute you do, you decide to break up with her?" Ricky glared at him. "Oh. I see what's going on."

"Yeah."

"It's only like I've been telling you this since Homecoming."

Even later in the night -- when EJ had been given the responsibility of lighter to light the bonfire (even though he was the oldest in the group), and been allowed to stoke its flames with a long stick, Ricky found himself thinking once more.

Red sat beside him. Gina was immediately opposite. He didn't even know where Nini was. Not that'd given more than a thought about it.

Unfortunately, EJ had remembered to bring his guitar and was now singing another 5 Seconds of Summer song. (Thought Ricky was sure he was only mere moments away from blasting Wonderwall at the top of his lungs.) This time -- Amnesia.

He'd piled the crackers and chocolate and the countless packets of marshmallows into a pile in the middle of the floor, and he told everybody to go ham with it.

Ricky has just kind of... smooshed everything between two crackers, but straight away, from across the fire, Gina corrected him. "Ricky, if you do cracker, then marshmallow, then chocolate and then another marshmallow, I promise you, it will taste so much better."

And she was right. Of course.

And he swore, in that light, the light through the dancing licks of golden and tangerine and amber that twirled like ribbons in the reflection of Gina's dark eyes, he was blind. Or -- at the very least, blind to everyone except her.

And even if he _was_ blind, he was certain of it, if the whole world looked dark. He'd still feel her there. He'd still feel her eyes locked upon his across the fire. He'd still sense her breathing, hear her thinking, listen to thoughts form within her mind.

If he couldn't smell -- he'd still recognise hers, one like the highest of flowers, like honeysuckle and lavender and daises.

If he couldn't hear, he'd still know her voice, he'd still be able to hear it like the faintest of songs whispered into his ear.

Suddenly -- and all too abruptly, Red stood up and announced to the whole group. "Hey guys! There is something very cool and swaggy and very much real in the kitchen right now, that I have to show everyone apart from Ricky and Gina! Follow me, guys!"

Somehow, whatever Red had tried to achieve with that actually worked, and everyone followed behind him, back up to the house. Including Nini, who had apparently come out at some point for smores.

Nonetheless, as everybody filtered inside, Gina walked over and plodded down beside Ricky.

"Are you cold?" He asked.

"No," she said, unconvincingly as she rubbed her hands together and held them up to the fire.

"Liar." He told her.

"Okay, you got me." She smiled from beside him, the orange lights dancing an intricate waltz upon her skin as he watched her. That was more than enough to prompt him to peel off his jacket and wrap it around her shoulders. She nuzzled into it and smiled at him, warmly. Barely there -- hidden in the orange glow of the fire, was the smallest of whispers. "Thank you." She said so softly like it was nothing more than an exhale.

In another attempt to warm herself, she shoved her hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. But, inevitably, she just ended up pulling out that same black sphere he'd handed to her the night before.

"Are you finally gonna tell me what you asked for last night?" He said, slowly blinking at her.

"Actually," she took a deep breath and looked right into his eyes. "I can do one better."

She held it between her hands. He leant right over to watch her, his head threatening to rest upon her shoulder.

She glanced back up, just once, at him. Almost for reassurance. He nodded. She sucked in a breath. And then she spoke. "Should Ricky kiss me right now?"

Shake.

Shake.

There -- from the gloom. "My sources say no."

She rolled her eyes, the apples of her cheeks blushing a vivid crimson. "See. This is what I mean. It's a piece of shit.

Ricky took it out of her hand and, surely as hard as he'd ever thrown in his life, he launched it into the vast wilderness of trees that surrounded him. "Screw the magic eight ball." He said, firmly. And then -- he leant around and kissed her.

And though his lips were blue, and snow threatened to fall from the darkened skies that surrounded them, at the moment that Ricky's lips were on Gina's, he felt so entirely warm.

And he felt whole.

Like this was finality.


End file.
